Tales, Triumphs, and Misadventures, My time in the Scottish Highlands

By Marc Stewart

Marc has a way with words, which will help the reader to visualize Mr. Stewart's descriptions of his experiences with the Scottish locals and travel around Scotland. He yearned to visit the place of his ancestors and walked on the battlefield of Culloden as well as visit the Iron age sites on Orkney.The stories will make you laugh out loud! Other areas of the book might assist a novice traveler with preparation for a visit to Scotland. In the end, the visit had a lasting impact on him and made him feel compelled to return to Scotland. He tells the stories as only he can and it is well worth the read!
Marc Stewart lives in Virginia with his family on a small farm. They raise pigs, horses, chickens, a goat named Roger and two Highland cows named Hamish and Kyloe. In 2001, Marc had the opportunity to travel to Scotland with his sister after Marc's father died. His mother and grandmother, in his youth, told him stories of Scotland and alluded to a Scottish ancestry. Scotland was a place of castles, clan wars and great vistas. His visit to Scotland lasted ten days and in those days he saw many of the places his family had set foot on in battles and to live. They visited Orkney and the Isle of Skye as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marc Stewart
• Release date: May 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370986866

Book preview

Tales, Triumphs, and Misadventures

My time in the Scottish Highlands

By Marc Stewart

For Mom,

Who encouraged me to love Scotland before I knew of Scotland.

Copywrite © 2017 by Marc Stewart

Cover design by Marc Stewart

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher and author.

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Table of Contents

And So It Was

Chapter I: Culloden

Chapter II: Unicorn

Chapter III: Exiles

Chapter IV: Two Minutes to Live

Chapter V: Sounds of Silence

Chapter VI: Corn Flakes

Chapter VII: Standing Stones

Chapter VIII: Skara Brae

Chapter IX: Maes Who?

Chapter X: Thurso

Chapter XI: Misfits

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Tales, Triumphs, and Misadventures

My time in the Scottish Highlands

And So It Was...

I grew up as a Stewart.

All my life my mother had told me stories of Mary, Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, the young pretender, and other famous Scots. I grew up feeling and knowing I was Scottish. Along the way, I harbored a deep pride in knowing that my family somewhere down the line, had Scottish blood. As I grew older, so did my interest in history and Scotland. As an adult, I found myself participating in living history reenactments, primarily of the American revolutionary war and the French and Indian war. It was about that time that I started looking up tartans and buying myself a few kilts to wear at some of the events and whenever the chance arose.

After the passing of my father 18 years ago, my sister and I got the chance to visit Scotland. We saw it as a once in a lifetime trip. We spent 12 days traveling from Inverness to Stirling and Skye, then up to Orkney and back again, covering as many sights as we could manage. The trip left us more enamored with Scotland than ever before.

It was then that I decided to explore my family tree with a more profound interest. I enlisted the help of a close friend and together, we worked on the beginnings of what would become a story that I could never have seen coming. With nothing more than a handwritten family tree as a starting point, we scoured the web and genealogy sites with great interest.

My father grew up in West Texas. His dad, my grandfather, had died in 1941, the result of an industrial accident, leaving my Texas born grandmother widowed with 3 sons, all under the age of 9. My father was 5 at the time of his death. Although he never spoke of grandpa much, he told me plenty about grandma when she wasn't around. I used to spend my summers with her and loved the hard drinking Texan woman that she had become over the years, and she, in turn, loved her grandbabies with all her heart. I never thought much about grandpa...until now.

As I started working on the family tree, I noticed a point that became stubbornly hard to ignore. There was a notation in one corner indicating that my grandfather’s dad had possibly changed his name. I thought she must be mistaken. I had noticed that a few of the other dates had been wrong and wrote it off to family lore and the passage of time. My grandfather was one of 4 children, also all boys. I remember hearing the names in stories as a child and I took great pleasure in reliving them as the names caught hold in my memory. After many e-mails, web searches and a few hundred hours of research, I managed to locate a few of my distant cousins that I had never known before. I posted what information I could find online hoping to find a connection somewhere. I was hoping that someone else was listening and could fill in the gaps for me. One day, I received a note from a distant cousin, the son of one of my grandfather’s three brothers. What he told me shocked me beyond belief. As I sat there reading his message, I felt my cheeks flush with anger. I knew this wasn't right. He must be mistaken. I set out to prove him wrong more so than to prove him correct or to confirm the information he had passed along.

In his letter, he explained to me that our great grandfather had worked for the railroad as a conductor in the late 1800's in Mississippi. As the story goes, he apparently had gotten drunk and switched a crossing incorrectly, causing the train to derail and plunge into the Mississippi river. Back then, it was common to blackball people from jobs where they had screwed up, which the railroad quickly did. Unable to find work at home, he had gone to Louisiana and changed his name before moving to Texas to work on another railroad.

Great grandpa lived out his life, having married and raised his 4 children before dying at the age of 73. My great-grandfather died as Aaron Samuel Stewart. The name I had been so proud to know as my own. I seethed with anger as my new cousin candidly pointed out the irony of him having changed his name so that his initials now spelled out A.S.S.

I felt as if I had been kicked. Everything I knew or believed to be true, was falling apart in front of me. How could my grandmother have known and not told me? I pushed it from my mind, anxious to be rid of this false history. A few weeks later, I sat with my mother talking about what the note contained and found myself getting angry all over again, when I noticed something in her eyes and she looked at me with a sad sort of smile. As my heart raced, I asked the question that I didn't think I wanted an answer to. Had Grandma ever mentioned this information to her? I was reeling when she confirmed my fears.

Yes, grandma had indeed told her a similar story but that it was sometime during the 70's but with the death of one of my dad’s brothers in Vietnam, she didn't press it. My dad hadn't known his grandfathers real name and it didn't seem to matter back then. As far as my mother was concerned, I was a Stewart and her son and that's all that mattered....And so the story went forgotten all those years. I sat dumbfounded. All my history, all my dreams of being in some small way, Scottish, were a lie. I felt as if I didn't know who I was any more. If I wasn't a Stewart, then who or what, was I?

I returned home and stared at all the family history I had gathered to that point. I felt as if it were all fruitless, that who I was or where I came from, didn't matter anymore. I looked at the kilts I had in my closet with a deep sadness and felt disgusted by the thought of never knowing the real story.

After a few weeks of grousing about, I was talking to my friend who had helped me gather the information, and she made the comment that it was a good thing my grandmother hadn't been a proud woman because it apparently didn't matter where we came from. I glared at her and snapped, She was proud. I said. She raised 4 sons by herself and she did it by herself! She looked at me with mock disgust and replied, Well, she didn't even bother telling you about your great grandfather. It's just as well; he was probably Polish or something anyway. Go to hell, I snapped, my eyes burning with anger. She smiled at me. Well, you sound Scottish, she said quietly. I looked at her for a moment before letting out a small laugh. She was right. I had to discover the truth. I needed to know.

I soon sent a note back to my long lost cousin asking for more information, if indeed he had any, almost hoping that somehow he had gotten it all wrong. I expressed to him how disappointed I had been to discover that we were not, in fact, Scottish, and that I wished somehow that it would all end. I waited anxiously for weeks before his reply came.

As I opened the letter, my hands were shaking, almost hopeful that he didn't know anything else and that I could finally put it all behind me. After all, no one knew who he was or where he had come from. Any details about the train wreck had been erased or forgotten through the years and I never found any trace of his name change. What more could some distant relative offer that I hadn't already discovered?

As I read the letter, my breath caught and I began to fidget in my chair. Dear Cousin, what do you mean we're not Scottish? We most certainly are. In fact, our line goes back as far as the Stewart line, and possibly further. I blinked and re-read it again. My mind raced. I continued reading. From what I understand, our family has been in the colonies since not long after the Mayflower arrived. Our ancestors left Scotland to come to the new world. I sat there shocked. Wow, that long ago I thought?

He went on to give me a few more details about his side of the family and what had become of grandpa's other brothers. Before ending his letter, he gave me the one thing I had been searching for, for so long, a name. Your great-granddaddy, he stated, was born Isaac **** Sandlin. Seeing his name sent a shiver through me, for my middle name is also Isaac.

I threw the letter down and now armed with the additional information, I set about discovering who I truly was. I was amazed at what I found. Finding a name that matched his was easy enough...but I had to be sure this was really him. Did the names match...did the spelling match...birthdates and so on?

Well, as most of you know by now, the name spelling rarely matches accurately so I was left with locations, dates and the names of siblings to help guide me. I started with Sandlin and going backwards, I found it interesting how the name had changed over the years. Sandlin...Sandlins…Sandland…Sandilands and then, finally...after so long and so many searches and thousands of hours of reading, writing, cursing and frustration, I hit on it. James Sandilands, born February 28, 1645/46, Scotland.

Now, to be honest, I had never heard the name before other than in passing; much like you would hear the name Jenkins or Watkins or any other name that isn't your own. I wondered who the Sandilands were. What part of Scotland had they come from? Why had they left? I knew nothing of Debretts or any other official records of the time. In fact, I found it amazing that I had managed to go back even this far. I couldn't imagine that I would be able to continue on even further. Well, as I was soon to discover, James Sandilands of Calder, West Lothian, Scotland, was the third son of Sir James Sandilands, 7th Lord of Calder. The feudal barony of Calder had belonged to the Sandilands clan since 1348.

On 24 January 1563, James appeared before Queen Mary at the behest of the Grand Preceptory, to surrender the lands and possessions of the Order, together with the title of Lord St. John, which he had held as Preceptor. The Queen accepted them and, showing her high regard for him (It didn't hurt that they were related), returned to him the lands of Torphichen, and conferred upon him the title of Lord Torphichen.

I found it of great interest, that our family had been a large part of the reformation movement in Scotland, and that my father, who had never known his true heritage, had lived and died as a Presbyterian Minister his entire adult life.

I also learned that indeed, the family continues to reside in Calder Castle to this day. It was with a mixed emotion of awe and disbelief that I found myself writing to the current Lord Torphichen to express not only my introduction to him but also my deepest gratitude for having continued the family line with grace and honor. I never expected to receive a reply but to my great joy, the Lady did reply back a short time later. I read the hand written letter in my shaking hands as I felt moist tears begin to form. My journey had come to an end. All the emotions I had experienced during my search were not in vain. I felt at last that I knew where I had come from and the relief I felt was overwhelming.

And so, my journey as a Sandilands doesn't mark the end of the line, but simply a new beginning for me. I am happily exploring my new family and history with as much enthusiasm as I have and will continue to enjoy the company of my new found distant relatives while I continue my search for answers. My only regret is that I didn't know of all this before my trip to Scotland. I would have loved to have had the chance to visit Kirk Calder and glimpse even a peek at the house which has been the family seat for so very